News, censorship and defiance on Internet Freedom Day

Summary:Things are heating up today on Internet Freedom Day, the anniversary of the largest protest in Internet history. Digital rights activists have already seen MLK's "I Have A Dream Speech" video removed.

One year ago today, the largest internet coalition in history came together to stop lawmaking that threatened a free and open Internet.

Digital rights and free speech groups around the world have established January 18th, 2013, as the first official Internet Freedom Day.

To celebrate a free and open internet - and call attention to those who would stand in the way - many organizations and individuals are engaging in activities that are powerful, pointed, and a little bit disobedient.

The Twitter hashtag #InternetFreedomDay is moving fast, as activists of all stripes make their contributions.

The primary Internet Freedom Day website states "Today, celebrate your freedom of expression" and encourages visitors to Tweet or post to Facebook, "What's something you love on the net that you’d never want to see censored?"

Fight For the Future explained that if SOPA passed, Internet users could have been penalized for uploading or sharing King's pivotal speech and "entire websites could have been shut down just for linking to it."

They've got a point: King advocated for civil disobedience as a means to effect change.

The video is copyrighted by EMI, who has been active in enforcing their copyright by taking down versions of King's speech from YouTube.

Internet Freedom Day is the one-year anniversary of a global online protest that shook the foundations of the way lawmakers do business, and attempt to control constituents, today.

On January 18, 2012, many websites including Wikipedia, Google and Reddit went "dark" censoring themselves to show what the internet would look like under the then-proposed, malfeasant legislation known as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) These were both set to be quietly passed by the U.S. Congress.

Congress was flooded by millions of phone calls and emails from angry constituents. Before the day was over, dozens of congressmen and congresswomen dropped their support for the bills, or came out in active opposition.

On January 18th, we celebrate Internet Freedom Day--as a reminder of the threats to our digital rights--and to remember how powerful we are as an international coalition.

The initial campaigns to stop SOPA and PIPA were launched by Demand Progress, founded by Aaron Swartz around that initial purpose in conceiving an online petition, "(...) in opposition to the Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act, and then the ensuing 18 months of activism that helped bring down SOPA and PIPA."

The Internet has been in mourning this week as one of its true innovators and pioneers, Aaron Swartz, took his own life at the age 26.

(...) At the time of his death, Aaron was facing a relentless and unjust prosecution under the outdated and draconian Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for the supposed “crime” using MIT's computer network to download millions of academic articles from the online archiveJSTOR, allegedly without "authorization."

Ms. Violet Blue (tinynibbles.com, @violetblue) is a freelance investigative reporter on hacking and cybercrime at Zero Day/ZDNet, CNET and CBS News, as well as a noted sex columnist. She has made regular appearances on CNN and The Oprah Winfrey Show and is regularly interviewed, quoted, and featured in a variety of publications that inclu...
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Disclosure

Ms. Violet Blue is an Advisor for Without My Consent (a legal nonprofit for survivors of online harassment) and an Editor on the Editorial Board for The Porn Studies Journal (Routledge). She is a Member of the Internet Press Guild and a Member of The Center for Investigative Reporting. Ms. Blue is currently under contract for one book with NoStarch Press, and regularly freelances for various outlets including San Francisco online news outlet SF Appeal, Penthouse and Playboy. Ms. Blue's Nokia WindowsPhone is a review model from Microsoft. She is not sponsored by any company, person or entity, or under any exclusive contract.